


The Astrals Have A Sick Sense Of Humour

by poisonous_panda



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Brotherly Love, Citadel, Crystal - Freeform, Darkness, Doppelganger, Flashbacks, Gen, Insomnia, Ring of the Lucii, Scourge, Sibling Rivalry, Starscourge, daemon, magna insomnia, older!noctis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-18 03:35:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13091586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisonous_panda/pseuds/poisonous_panda
Summary: Ardyn Week Day 5 Prompt - Starscourge, Daemon, Darkness. I love the idea of older Noctis looking like Ardyn's jealous brother Somnus, it adds a certain edge to the final fight. What if Ardyn's hatred for Somnus bleeds out during that fight and the Darkness causes him to have other side effects like flashbacks, hearing voices etc?





	The Astrals Have A Sick Sense Of Humour

Ardyn felt giddy with excitement sitting on the Throne of Lucis. The Throne he was supposed to take over 2000 years ago. 

He was finally here. But it's a shame the Citadel has been partially destroyed since those failed peace talks at the treaty-signing ceremony. Still, it doesn't look the same as back in Ardyn's day. It looks much fancier. That's why way back before the Wall came down, Ardyn was more than excited to be the envoy for the Empire - he really wanted to see what the other side of his family had done with the place over all these years.

Was that really so long ago? To an Immortal whom time means nothing to, it seemed both like a blink of an eye and forever ago.

The giddiness in his stomach at finally sitting on this throne caused small black smoke-like tendrils to emit from his hands as the Scourge infection responded to his excitement. Then, upon hearing footsteps and a muffled conversation outside the huge double doors made the older man almost jump to his feet.

Oh he could not wait! Either he will be free to rest, or Noctis - his dear brother's descendant - will die by his hand. Either way, the cursed Crystal and it's Champion will be no more after tonight; regardless of the outcome.

Suddenly, the giant doors are slowly opened and the Second King of Light and his entourage walk in, their faces a picture of determination.

And for a second, Ardyn's blood ran cold. Well... colder. The Scourge infection running through his veins was like a persistent virus, trying to make his body succumb to its effects.

Noctis looked the mirror image of that betrayer brother, Somnus. The same long jet black hair, and the same striking blue eyes. Even that disgusting Kingly attire that every King has had recreated for them throughout the millennias. How sick and twisted must the Astrals' sense of humour be? It all began with Somnus and it seems it would end with him too. 

The Second Chosen's friends had all dressed up in this new elite force of soldiers called the Kingsglaive. The regiment wasn't around in Ardyn's day.

Ardyn hated Noctis a lot more in that single moment than he had ever hated his long lost Nephew. Oh how he was going to enjoy killing him. The thought spread a smirk across the ex-Chancellor's stubbled face.

So did the friends' reactions to the illusion he had put in place for them. The Scourge-ridden bodies of the late King Regis, the failed Oracle Lady Lunafreya, the disgraced Emperor Iedolas Aldercapt and the wasted life of the ex-Kingsglaiveman Nyx Ulric.

"Wha-What is that?!" the Chosen King's MT comrade exclaims as the friends walk menacingly towards who they deem a Usurper on their Throne. It took all of Ardyn's might to conceal the raw power of Darkness roiling it's way over him due to his hidden excitement and hatred.

"I'm afraid you're out of luck," Ardyn starts, repeating the same line he had said to them upon their first meeting. But this time his voice didn't carry such a jolly edge, "The Throne brings you here? It seats only one." Shifting his weight to make himself look like he was very much enjoying the plush fabric of the ornamental chair, Ardyn finally looks at all four of them. He couldn't help but chuckle.

Noctis' face was a picture of pure fury. 

"Off my chair jester, the King sits there."

Enraged by his long lost Nephew's choice of words, Ardyn jumps to his feet and heavily stomps his booted foot on the Throne's cushion. _Jester_. The same thing Somnus denounced him as when Ardyn had tried to plead his innocence and non-corruption at the old Court of Law. Calling a King a lowly Jester was one of the biggest insults you could give royalty. How dare he.

It seems Somnus did indeed live on in this brat. It makes sense, after all the Six do have a twisted sense of humour.

Staring down at his boot while he collects himself, Ardyn wills himself back into the present as the Dark energy fizzling within him threatens to shatter his fragile calm demeanor. How he'd love to just warp over there and strangle the little brat! Noctis or Somnus, it was slowly beginning to not matter. Damn the Six. 

"Oh Noct... How I have waited for this. Longer than you could ever know." the Fallen King speaks to his descendant rather than to the men behind Noctis staring daggers at up him. Finally, all the scheming has come to an end. It got so boring and tiring after a while. Like a ridiculously long game of chess. Turning to face them full on, Ardyn reaches a hand out then speaks again.

"Tonight the dreams of the blood royal," a manic smile spreads across the ancient man's face as he clenches his fist, "Comes to an end!" 

"Spite's all that's kept him going." the Second King's Shield states, rather pointlessly.

"Huh, talk about a grudge." the MT concurs.

"Ardyn sits the throne?" the blind man asks his unworthy King. He's whispering but Ardyn can hear him just fine. If anything, the blind man was the only one Ardyn had a shred of respect for in this ridiculous mish-mash of a group. 

"Hmph, not for long. This is my ascension." The King states boldly. 

Enough talk, Ardyn was growing bored. They do not deserve to be in this fight, and Noctis must fight alone. Smirking at the group, Ardyn holds his hand out and throws balls of Dark energy at the other three not of the Lucis Caelum bloodline, and they all collapsed into a Scourge induced coma. If Noctis wins, they will wake up when he banishes the Scourge. If Ardyn wins... well... Noctis won't be alone in the Afterlife.

Panicking, the lonely King looks from his fallen comrades to Ardyn. "What did you do?!" he demands.

"They have no place in this!" Ardyn's breathy shouts come out in emphasized syllables, betraying his excitement, "The battle of Kings! Come Noctis!"

And with that, the Fallen King warps to the streets below. It only takes a few moments for Noctis to follow suit, having shed the cape and ornaments adorning his Kingly attire.

With his back to Noctis as he collected himself from the shock of seeing his brother's appearance again, Ardyn finally acknowledges Noctis as he turns to face him. 

"The once helpless and hapless Prince, is he now ready to claim his crown?" Summoning his sword from his own Armiger, Ardyn challenges Noctis. "Don't let us down." he adds. The young brat looks so much like Somnus, and as much as it pains Ardyn to pay his dear brother a compliment, he was a skilled fighter. If Noctis could not keep up, then he was not only disappointing Ardyn, but disappointing the progenitor of his branch of the bloodline as well.

To test his dear Nephew's ability, Ardyn warps to him as soon as he finishes speaking, to which he was pleased Noctis retaliated. The sheer force of the two Chosen Kings colliding was enough to throw them both back and up several stories into opposite skyscrapers' windows. Warping back down to their chosen battlefield, the two men face off against each other.

"Let the games begin." Ardyn smirks, psyching himself up as the Scourge running through his veins ran faster than blood could. The Scourge's sheer power thrummed through him now, gearing up for the fight it could sense outside of it's vessel's body.

"No, now they end." Noctis states rather predictably.

"So you are the Chosen King," Ardyn sneers, "but you are a second choice at best!" he shouts as he brings his sword down on Noctis' head, but the younger man lithely rolls away out of harm's reach. Oh my, it felt so good to finally shout that insult at his dear Nephew, and the rush of adrenaline it gave him caused some tendrils of smoke to shoot up from him.

The clashes of the two King's swords ripped through the dead city, with nobody but the daemons as their spectators. But they dared not intervene, they could feel Ardyn's power rolling off him. He was the predator among the weak, their very senses vibrating anytime they got dangerously close to him. Everything was silent save for the fierce battle waging in the homeland of both the Kings.

Both of them were working up quite a sweat, attacking, blocking and parrying every move the other made. Even warping at each other was dodged and countered. Somnus would be proud of his spawn. 

The younger man grunted as he got to his feet and warped at Ardyn. Ardyn was just quick enough to block it, but Noctis had found a hidden strength somewhere and managed to knock Ardyn's sword from his hand, causing the ancient man to fall to his knees as Noctis threw a fireball at him. The burning hurt, but it couldn't kill.

Noctis had warped off somewhere to avoid the flames.

"Where is your head?" Ardyn laughs menacingly. The Chosen King scared of his own fire? Pitiful. And Ardyn let it be known.

"Truly a pity!" he shouts, before knocking his descendant to the ground and grabbing him by the scruff of the neck. 

"Ah... my revenge is soon at hand. How long have I waited..?" Ardyn looks into the face of his brother for the first time in thousands of years. He was no longer Noctis in Ardyn's eyes.

"Don't worry, it's far from over!" the young doppelganger spits back, invigorating Ardyn's enjoyment of his hands clamped around the younger man's neck. 

"Well let's have it then. You and your Crystal, against all I have become." Ardyn surprised himself with how even he kept his voice. Now. Now he could use his powers. 

There's SO much of it! So much Darkness and energy crammed into one body! Letting it out, Ardyn raises his sword as a purple glow emits not just from the weapon, but from his entire being.

"A gift for you!" the crazed older man shouts as Dark energy explodes out of him, catching the younger man and knocking him to the ground as the wind escapes his lungs. It felt empowering, and relieving to release such a huge pent up amount.

"Truly a pity." the older man sneers again. One thing Noct and Somnus didn't have in common, was that Noctis didn't seem to enjoy insulting his enemy. Either that or the poor kid just wasn't witty enough to have a comeback ready. It annoyed Ardyn slightly if he was totally honest.

Warping over to the struggling Chosen, Ardyn kicked him while he was crawling to his feet then warped off before Noctis could summon his weapon again.

"Over here...." the Accursed taunts darkly as Noctis struggled to his feet. 

But... something had changed.

After letting that power out, there was something different about this battlefield. It was beginning to blur around the edges.

Ardyn was both in the present and in the past. Every block and parry, every dodge and counter, every grunt and every scream... it was following the exact footsteps of one of the training sessions with his younger brother again two thoussand years ago.

_"No fair Iz!" the redheaded teenage Prince called, "That's cheating!"_

_The young Princes were training for battle as if their magic had been taken away from them, but Somnus kept phasing away from Ardyn's attacks and it was starting to get really annoying._

_"Stop being a baby." came the reply of a young Somnus, "Rules were made to be broken!"_

_That had upset and angered Ardyn so much he had struck his younger brother on the back of the head with their blunted training swords. Of course he was punished for it and Somnus was declared winner of the challenge. Ardyn usually hated cheaters, especially when it came to training for something as important as taking the Throne. Ardyn really was passionate about his destiny and wan't to be in peak condition for it._

Interrupted in his flashback, Noctis managed to get a slice across the bridge of Ardyn's nose with the tip of his sword, to which Ardyn countered with a stabbing motion that Noctis phased through.

Again the clashing of metal on metal rang out, both of them tearing at each other's skin and clothing with their sharp blades, filth from the ground and in the air staining their exposed skin.

Noctis was on the ground again and Ardyn went to summon his beloved scythe so he could cleave this brat clean in two, but as the anger and excitement of the killing blow roiled and bubbled within him, the Scourge grabbed hold of his mind again, distorting Noct's proportions and making a vile smirk twist into existence on the younger man's face as those bright blue eyes condemned him.

_Ardyn was back in chains, shirtless and filthy in that tiny cell underneath the Citadel. Now he looks back, why didn't he just blast his way out? It's because the Ardyn back then loved his people, and believed they would still trust him._

_Somnus stood there smirking at the cell door with his hands clasped behind his back, his bright blue eyes made all the more striking by his long black hair and black pinstriped suit._

_"They are my people now." he says._

In the few moments of Ardyn's hesitation, Noctis had got to his feet and warped into the Fallen King's side - his blade tearing through his skin so black blood spurted down the older man's pinstriped trousers. Ardyn grunts in more surprise than pain, snapping back to the present. Those black tendrils were back again as the Dark power within Ardyn threatened to take over his entire mind.

 _No time to think, Somnus is coming back for another blow_ , Ardyn thought, beginning to become unable of telling the difference between the two men.

Raising his sword, Ardyn lets out some maniacal laughter as purple and black energy explodes out of his a second time, eating up a little more of his sanity. However this time Noctis was quick enough to warp out of the way.

Coming back down, Noctis summons his blue Armiger. It's a shame Ardyn couldn't have used the full extent of his powers, but an Armiger battle would be rather glorious. His poor Nephew only seems to have 13 of the Royal Arms, so Ardyn supposed he could play nice and keep it equal.

No more games. Noctis and Somnus both die now.

"A King at last!" Ardyn acknowledges Noctis' Armiger - in such a better shape than the pitiful light display he had shown against Ravus at the Imperial Base before Ardyn had stepped in to save the High Commander's meaningless life.

Both the Kings float into the air, their crystalline spirit weapons clashing mercilessly against each other - controlled by sheer will - as well as the flesh of the family at war.

It was tiring, both men were showing their fatigue. The temptation for Ardyn to play dirty and combine his Dark powers with the Armiger was great, and it's not like that bastard Somnus didn't deserve it!

But no, this was not Somnus. This was Noctis, an unfortunate doppelganger, Ardyn had to mentally remind himself. Either way, he will still die.

The high pitched clanging sound the crystalline weapons made on impact with each other brought a sense of nostalgia to Ardyn, so did the scenery in which he used it in. Sending a powerful blast of red weapons at Noctis, the Scourge grabbed Ardyn's mind again.

_Ardyn and Somnus were both floating high up above Insomnia. Not the metropolitan city it was today, but the humble wood and straw town it used to be, while a blazing sun hung in the sky. Ardyn had been taught how to assimilate with his Father's weapon and was told that every Lucis Caelum would learn this technique further down the bloodline so their arsenal would get bigger. Ardyn did slightly envy his unborn descendants - if only he could see how large the Armiger could grow! But, being the good teasing teenage brother, he had scooped his little brother Somnus into his arms and shot into the air - an added gift from assimilating to their Father's weapon. This was long before the Crystal had chosen anyone and the Scourge had only just appeared._

_At first Somnus was terrified, and Ardyn could only laugh at his little brother. But of course he would not let him fall. For all their disagreements, they loved each other very much. So Ardyn wanted to share this view with nobody but his little brother. Once Somnus got over the fear, he marveled at the sights he could see from so high up. Ardyn couldn't keep this up for long however, because the Armiger skill was only to be used in emergencies as it drained the monarch's life force. So, instead, it became a regular thing for Ardyn to whisk Somnus up into the sky and sit on one of the very high rooftops of the Citadel just for fun, or if they wanted to talk about something in private._

_It was one of the happiest times in Ardyn's life._

Back in the present, Noctis sent a barrage of explosive crystalline weapons at Ardyn that sent the older man crashing to the floor, and the sheer effort of it caused Noctis to drop out of the sky like a powerless stone.

Struggling to his feet, Ardyn speaks more softly to his descendant, still dazed at the leftover remnants of love he felt for his brother - something he had not felt for a very very long time.

"A war... of attrition then."

Noctis makes a lot of noise getting to his feet, clearly ready to fulfill this prophecy. But Ardyn had made his peace upon seeing that flashback with his brother. There was no need for Ardyn to stay in this world anymore, thruthfully he was too lonely. The Shield was right - his spite _was_ all that kept him going. Noctis would unfortunately die too, and with him so would the soul of the Crystal that began this entire mess. Somnus was already long dead, no doubt entrapped in that infernal ring, so his soul would be obliterated too. What would Ardyn's continued existence bring Eos after Noct's death? 

Nothing but the Scourge. The very thing throbbing in his head right now, goading him to destroy the young man in front of him. That's not what the Healer would have wanted all those years ago.

It wasn't too late, he could still finish what he started all those years ago before Somnus interfered. One last good act. It was darkly funny how the Scourge grabbing his mind and dredging up such a forbidden memory had helped the bid bad Accursed actually have a change of heart.

Around the fatigued men, dark blue figures sparked into existence. 

Ardyn still had one final show to perform. Now, more than ever, he needed Noctis to hate him. Hate him to death, just like his brother.

"The Kings of Yore are on hand, calling you forth... to Oblivion." he taunts Noctis as the younger man's ancestors await their bloodthirsty prize. Exaggerating his breathlessness and tiredness, Ardyn recounts all the people Noctis let down on his journey to spur the young man on.

"Yet when your father died, you were off _playing_ with your friends!" Noctis struck him on the shoulder with his blade and Scourge tainted blood spurt forth. Good.

"When your Beloved died, you lay watching, _powerless_ to stop it!" Noctis slashed again, cutting Ardyn across the throat and under the chin so the Scourge tainted blood dribbed down his frilly collar. Good.

Ardyn finally let himself crack.

"You think ten years is a long time? It is nothing to me! I have lived in darkness for **_ages_**!" Forgetting himself for a moment, Ardyn summoned his sword and made a flurry of attacks at Noctis, but he expertly phased through them all despite how tired he was. It wasn't like Ardyn had meant to kill Noctis in that frenzy, it was more he finally let himself lose control and lash out.

If anything, Ardyn's hotheadedness worked to both of their advantage. Noctis summoned his Armiger weapons one by one in their solid, usable form rather than in their crystalline glory, and struck Ardyn with a couple of different ones before the ancient man realised what was going on. Welcoming the onslaught, Ardyn felt the Scourge's power slowly release its grip on his mortal body with every new wound Noctis created with these sacred weapons, and Ardyn was grateful for it. Every slash and blow made him feel more like his old self from all those centuries ago. Ardyn played his part and summoned the mirror versions of Noct's weapons, but didn't bother to block properly.

 _Too late to let on I have more_ , he thinks to himself when considering revealing his huge Armiger, so he allows Noctis to finish him with his King Regis' own sword - the only one Ardyn couldn't mirror because it was the only one out of all one hundred and thirteen Royal Arms he hadn't assimilated with, yet he didn't bother to summon anything else to block the killing blow. The blade tore through the Accursed's blackened, solid pulp of a heart.

"So... that is how you would end it." Ardyn groans, pain overtaking him from his staked heart in a way he hadn't felt for years.

"Now it is over Majesty," Ardyn breathes, acknowledging Noctis as the Chosen King, albeit there is still one more thing to be done in the Astral Realm, "What will you do? Banish the daemons and bring peace? Erase me from history once more?" Ardyn knew Noctis had every intention of doing the first task, but what with him looking like Somnus, he wanted to know if the younger man had any intention of following in his ancestor's nasty footsteps.

"This time..." Noct's entire face along with his voice softens, "You can rest in peace." There was a beautiful tone of sincerity that Ardyn found comforting in what he knew to be his final moments.

Noctis wasn't like Somnus after all, just in face and face alone. This brought Ardyn some much needed closure, as if he could pretend this young Nephew was a surrogate for that nasty jealous brother. This time, Ardyn would not be forgotten. 

With a genuine smile gracing his lips for the first time in years, Ardyn says his farewell.

"I shall await you... in the beyond."

Then his body evaporated in tiny red flecks, as bright as the Sun. Nothing was more fitting for the first King of Light. 

Only Ardyn's tainted soul remained on the other side, and Noctis was on his way to set him free at last.


End file.
